


The Empty Palace

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Heavy Angst, M/M, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock's Mind Palace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8240737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: After collapsing in 221B following the ambulance arriving, Sherlock finds himself in a room in his Mind Palace that has been locked away since early childhood.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever story for this series, so please be kind.

_The Empty Palace_

 

              “This again, I see.” The lazy, almost careless voice bombarded Sherlock Holmes’ mind. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. Dying was dull. This room, however…

              He had seen it before. As a very young child, looking through his brother’s things. Lined with books. Old books filled with philosophy; Plato; Hobbes; Kant; Locke; Morgenthau. A faint film of dust was over the library, the spines cracked and the pages yellow and stained with old tea. There was an old armchair beside the towering library stacked with books. It looked similar to –

             Suddenly the surroundings started to waver. Sherlock tried to maintain whatever sanity he had left, but he fell onto one knee, gasping for breath as the surroundings started to morph into one another.

            “There used to be a time in which you died quietly,” the voice sighed in exasperation as Sherlock’s gasps filled the room. “ _It_ is supposed to be quiet. At least," the figure stated with a long look at Sherlock, " _my_ death was. Is this…what you’re doing now a thing?” There was conceited laughter behind Sherlock, filling in the emptiness of his bleeding heart as he tried to _breathe_.

              “Oh!” There was the sound of clapping hands beside him, and the dying self-proclaimed high-functioning sociopath could imagine the smile and glee in his eyes. “This a rebellious phase then, Sherlock!”

              “Shut up!” The groaning man roared. He couldn’t focus. The room, which he had no idea how he could have entered it, was spinning. Sherlock could almost taste the blood in his mouth, and hear the paramedics shouting to shock his heart. His errant curls fell into his eyes, and Sherlock shut his mouth to prevent from screaming. “You…” he breathed. With some effort, the raven-haired man’s eyes wandered across the room. The bed was near the left side of the room. The covers were plain with horrible cotton that _he_ knew he hated. Dark gray covered with walls with only a towering library to allude that there was a person having lived in this room. _Leviathan…The Republic…Politics…_ papers by various philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians. All neatly organized…with a chair, well-worn and eerily similar to the one in Baker Street. _John…!_ The memory of whispering his name as he collapsed caused another searing pain to engulf Sherlock’s mind.

              “You’re not supposed to be here!” Sherlock snarled as he turned to the figure sitting in the chair.

              A thin opening of his mouth betrayed the depth of the heartbreak the dying man was feeling as he clutched his trembling hands over his chest. His own face stared back at him. A deep sigh, shuddering and bordering on hyperventilation, escaped from Sherlock’s mouth as he noted the subtle differences. The eyes were gray, and his nose was smaller. Wrinkles from smiling too much echoed against his face. But there were no smiles as the figure continued to taunt Sherlock.

              “I’m always here, Sherlock.” A sing-song voice came from his mouth, the smile still not on his lips. Sherlock was finding it hard to breathe; he had to fight, and clutched at his shirt in order to fight to get air. “Always.” The eyes that had the same shape almost seemed to be smiling with glee as Sherlock completely fell on his back with raw gasps tearing from his mouth. “I’m the personification of all that is good in your heart.” He lowered himself to the floor, the hardwood floor with a dark brown color, and whispered in Sherlock’s ear. “Did you really think you could lock me up forever, Sherlock? At last when you’re dying _again_ for the fourth time bless you, you sought out me.”

              “Twice,” Sherlock snapped. He stared at the face inches from his own now. “I’m older now than you were when you died –”

              An expression akin to loss framed the figure’s face. _Sentiment was always his weakness,_ Sherlock thought as he regarded his oldest brother.

             “Four,” spat out Sherrinford Holmes. “You fool yourself thinking that you deleted me from your Mind Palace, but you did not, Sherlock.” _This must what it must be like when I deduce,_ Sherlock thought as his brother’s eyes bored into his own. Sherrinford always seemed to know what the youngest Holmes was thinking. “You created a special room for me, inaccessible for most your life. Too much sentiment, too much grief, Sherlock. Until now.”

              “Why now?”

              Sherlock decided to lie. “I was bored.” A sharp pain blossomed in his chest, but he ignored it. “Dying was so last week.”

              “Bullshit!” Sherlock cringed at the fury in his brother’s voice. “You’re afraid, Sherlock. More than ever, which is why you came to me and this room.” Sherrinford continued to speak, not yet fulfilling his need to yell. “You died first when you faked your death. Your body might have been alive during those two years, Sherlock, but you died the same day John Watson did.”

              “Why this, now?” Sherlock snarled. “First, you act like someone I know, and now you act like an overbearing grandmother.”

              Sherrinford actually smiled. It suddenly caused Sherlock to stare, his eyes wandering over the smile that his older brother was giving him.

              “It’s your intention to make me act like Moriarty, who you visited before. It would…hurt less, Sherlock, if I behaved like him than of your beloved older brother.”

              Sherlock focused on swallowing, attempting to not allow any emotion to show.

              “I have never considered you beloved to me.”

              To make matters more dire, Sherrinford laughed and laid his hand across Sherlock’s curls. It was a sound that Sherlock hadn’t heard in twenty-three years. It was..nice. 

                Pain entered his chest.

              “You died again before you came back, Sherlock.” A subdued – _“Stop pouting, Sherlock! I’ll go with you on a case!”_ – look appeared across Sherrinford’s face. “I remember of how you called out to both of us in your haze of agony.” Sherlock’s eyes widened, and a gasp of desperation escaped from him as he tried to swallow the fear burning in his stomach. “Nightmares…and everything that came with your…holiday interfered with your beautiful mind. All for John Watson.”

              “Of course it was for John,” Sherlock stated nonchalantly as if he was discussing tea.

              Sherrinford’s face clouded over, a red tint overcoming his cheeks as he stared at his baby brother.

              “You died for him again, Sherlock.” The anger was thick enough that Sherlock could swallow it. Ragin and dark like a storm at sea…or the wind coming from the east. “Hear that?” Sherrinford tilted his head, an expression of disgust on his face.

              “Mm,” Sherlock made an uncommitted noise at the back of his throat at the images of the paramedics shocking his heart again. (Fourth time, when do they ever give up?) Shouting at one another to increase the oxygen volume, or to start the heart monitor. “It’s just transport.”

              “Not to John Watson,” came Sherrinford’s whisper. “Look at his _overjoyed_ face, why don’t you?”

              Sherlock had enough energy to roll his eyes. “Really, sarcasm is unbecoming of you, Sherrinford. Being nearly two decades older, you truly should work on your temperament.”

              But even so, Sherlock looked. Baker Street was now visible, with the inside of the flat chaotic. Mrs. Hudson was clutching her clothing, tears almost trailing down her cheeks as the paramedics continued their work. John… Sherlock couldn’t understand why he was glaring at Mary with such undisguised hatred. The faint memory of feeling his arm around him as he collapsed. _“John…”_ The fury in his expression, as he stared at his wife.

              “She didn’t phone the ambulance,” came Sherrinford’s next statement. Sherlock started at his brother incredulously. “Your memory regarding those events after your close encounter with death have to be overlooked, Sherlock. There was no mobile where the woman you knew as Mary was standing.” There was sadness, no…pity in his eyes. Before anger could cloud his judgement, Sherrinford tapped his temple. “You know that, Sherlock. _Mary_ ,” a name spat out with barely concealed loathing, hissed from his brother’s lips. “did kill you. Six minutes, Sherlock. And then…”

              “Yes!” Sherlock shouted. “Yes, she did kill me! I told her that it was only surgery for John’s sake!” His brother’s face was expressionless. “And yes.” Sherlock’s voice lowered, and he fought to gain control over his cracking voice. “I told John all those…terrible _lies_ to keep him safe.”

_“John, are abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people. Now, does it really surprise you that the woman you have fallen in love with conforms to that pattern?”_

_“Because you chose her.”_

            “You are in love with him.” It wasn’t a question. Sherlock half-expected Sherrinford to react in pity as Mycroft was oft to do, but was stunned to find genuine understanding in his eyes. “You have been in love with John Watson for a very long time…since he saved you…and you would do anything to protect him and his happiness, even if it meant dying again and causing him to believe in lies that are farther from the truth.”

           “How do you know this?” Sherlock rasped. Sherrinford had his hands clasped in a prayer, and was looking at his brother through veiled eyes. “How can you possibly _deduce_ that?”

          “I embody all of the sentiment you have, Sherlock,” Sherrinford replied quietly. “I was starting to gather dust in this small room of mine until John Watson came along. Then all the emotions that you have, all the _good_ ones that make you feel this pain, is what makes what I am.”

             “Your confession to John…no, both of them…agonized this room, Sherlock. Agonized me.” Sherrinford paused. The two almost identical faces glanced at each other. “The love that you have for John Watson is pure, Sherlock. Not of how Mary –”

              “John is happier with Mary,” Sherlock snapped. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on relocating to somewhere else in his Mind Palace. But it didn’t work.

              _“Don’t tell John.”_

The haunting image of Mary’s face close to his own caused Sherlock to recoil. Her cold eyes, breathing down on his face as his eyes barely opened. Mere hours after he regained life and remained attached to morphine. There was so much pain that Sherlock didn’t know what was happening, and _why_ he was having such a terrible nightmare.

              And the confrontation that they had…with her, cold and ruthless contempt as she stated that he was slow. _“How badly do you want to find out?”_

              “How many times until you tell him, Sherlock?”

              The question was prodded, almost as if the youngest Holmes was a young child again, his small face sobbing into his oldest brother’s shoulder as the young adult whispered a lullaby.

              _“John can’t ever know that I lied to him. Please, Sherlock, understand.”_

“Never,” Sherlock whispered. “I am the unworthy, remember Sherrinford? I…” he licked his lips and sought to find the peace in his heart that was always John Watson. John…who was now holding his hand as the paramedics lifted him on a stretcher, having successfully started his heart. “Remember the story that Mycroft told me? The East Wind always picks up the unworthy in its path…and John does not deserve a psychopathic freak junkie.”

              “Mummy shouldn’t have gotten pregnant with you, not at her age.” Sherlock didn’t respond. How many times had he heard this story? Mycroft, mocking his stupidity and incompetence with the fact that their mother had given birth to him at age forty-two? Or Sherrinford, telling him the same thing as he did in the past when he was very young. “There was a big age gap between us, Sherlock.” There was a brief pause. “But that does not mean I love you any less.” Sherlock would have told a dull goldfish of the fact that his tense was incorrect, and sneered about love and sentiment. But it was his older, much older brother who was speaking to him. In his minds’ eye, Sherlock could still remember Sherrinford – _Shern_ , holding him as he whispered Plato’s _The Republic_ to him as a toddler, laughing as the very small human being tried to touch his face. “You were different from us, as a very young child. Smiling and happy to interact with blocks and toys that Mycroft and I had no interest in. Everyone thought you were stupid.”

              “Except you,” Sherlock replied. A lump formed in his throat at the memory of his parents discussing him as if he wasn’t there, Mummy crying and worried that she had yet to hear her youngest speak. Sherrinford always whisked him away before it became too much, the tall teen carrying the dark-haired little boy in his arms as he began to hum a lullaby or recite passages and theories of philosophy. “You always said that I was intelligent.” _As with love, I imagine John Watson knows nothing._ “I imagine…John Watson imagines my early childhood beginning solving linear equations like Mycroft, or speaking Greek as you did.”

              “You remained nonverbal until the age of three.” Sherrinford gently caressed Sherlock’s cheek, allowing a smile to fill his face as he stared at his beloved youngest brother. “My name was your first word. And…” A bubble of laughter escaped his lips, identical to Sherlock’s, and pain numbed the sentiment almost became too much from the memories of the laughter Sherlock had shared with…

              “You are not unworthy, my dear baby brother. You _are_ the East Wind. John believes that you are the wisest and _best_ man that he has ever known.” Sherrinford’s smile faded, and he stared with his solemn gray eyes at Sherlock. “Don’t die again, Sher–”

* * *

 

               Sherlock Holmes awoke to find himself in another hospital bed. His eyes snapped open to find the room empty, devoid of the person that he wished most to see.

              _Shern…_ It had taken almost his entire life to remember the one person who mattered most to him in this word. Benedict Sherrinford Harrison Holmes had been everything to him, and Sherlock had lost more than his heart when the oldest Holmes child had died on a mission for the MI-6. John always saw, but didn’t observe. If he was truly curious of why Sherlock didn’t have a mirror installed in the loo, then he would have seen a shred of agonized sentiment echo across Sherlock’s face if he ever thought of Sherlock capable of emotions. Mummy and Daddy always stated that their youngest looked so much like their oldest. And it was painful, very painful to see Shern’s face every time he saw his own. The government, and the head of the operation had killed his brother. _Mycroft_ had killed his brother, by his arrogance and posh manner that Sherlock hated since he remembered. And so, it didn’t matter to him of which politician died and who was sacked and a boring scandal that bled the headlines. Benedict Sherrinford Harrison Holmes should be alive, not soulless bodies without a thought or care in this world.

              Drugs helped the pain. It blocked out…everything. John saw, but never observed. _“You machine!”_ He didn’t know that Sherlock took drugs to surpass his feelings. He didn’t think he had a heart. Except for Moriarty. Who knew.

              _“I’ll burn the heart out of you.”_

_Too late for that,_ Sherlock tried to think nonchalantly at the images of John Watson and _Mary Watson_ filled his mind.

              John had no idea that Sherlock had fallen in love with him the moment they met. He had no idea of how Sherlock had kept his sanity during his two years dismantling Moriarty’s network by talking to him – always – in his Mind Palace. He had no idea of how close Sherlock was to breaking in Serbia, the pain from his too-thin back overwrought with agony, calling out to two people who he loved most in the world. Just as he didn’t think Sherlock was capable of loving anyone, especially John Watson.

              When in fact, Sherlock would gladly – blissfully, overwhelmingly with want – be happy to stay by his side as long as John was able to. But John…loved Mary. Despite the agony of white-hot pain bombarding his thought every time he thought about the domestic bliss, John _always should remain happy._

_I’m sorry, Shern._ Sherlock thought as the darkness floated around his mind. _But…I cannot allow anyone to hurt John. I will risk anything for John to live…even if I die, again, for real this time._


End file.
